Purdy: A watershed game for Sharks' playoff hopes

San Jose Sharks Devin Setoguchi (16) celebrates his game winning goal with Manny Malhotra (27) against the Colorado Avalanche in the overtime period for game 2 of the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs at HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif. on Friday, April 16, 2010. (Nhat V. Meyer/Mercury News)

The last one happened 5:22 into overtime. And it might turn out to be the biggest play of the entire series if the Sharks should go on to win the thing.

Devin Setoguchi scored the goal to give the Sharks their 6-5 victory. But the goal was mostly the product of Ryane Clowe, who made a big-hustle move on a Sharks power play. He swooped from behind the net to pick up a puck floating in open ice and then pushed it toward the net, where Setoguchi's stick made the sudden-death tip past Colorado goalie Craig Anderson.

But if you wanted to peel it back farther, you could probably credit Jed Ortmeyer for drawing the interference penalty against Colorado's Adam Foote to set up the winning power play.

And if you wanted to peel it back farther than that, you could definitely credit Sharks forward Joe Pavelski, who with just 31.3 seconds left in the third period scored the tying goal off a rebound of Dany Heatley's shot to send the game into overtime.

All of them qualified as watershed moments. But they led to Setoguchi's celebration — which marked the first time the Sharks had led in either of the two games so far. But when the puck went into the net . . . well, now we know what the noise of 17,562 people exhaling sounds like.

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Because here's what that goal meant: The Sharks can breathe again, too. They can go to Denver with the series tied. They can go to Denver with the knowledge that coming from behind against the Avalanche is more than possible, because the Sharks did it five times in one game.

And maybe, between now and Sunday's Game 3, the Sharks can figure out how to stifle Colorado's fire wagon hockey attack. And how to get more production from the Sharks' top line. And how to get goalie Evgeni Nabokov settled down into a more comfortable groove.

All in due time. But at least the Sharks will have that time. If they had lost Friday, they would have been tasked with doing something no other Sharks team had done — rally from a two games to none deficit to win a series.

There has never been a playoff game at HP Pavilion with more total goals scored — and the only two that matched Friday's 11 occurred more than 15 years ago.

Scoring six goals seems to answer the question about whether the Sharks can create offense against Colorado's neutral zone trickery. But there are defensive issues for the Sharks to solve, for sure.

For instance, the Sharks still can't seem to get a grip on Colorado's ability to push in fifth gear through the neutral zone and cross the blue line at warp speed. On the Avalanche's fifth goal, defensemen Jason Demers and Kent Huskins backed up and gave way too much space to Colorado's Paul Stastny, who made an easy cross-ice pass to teammate Chris Stewart for an open missile past Nabokov.

Fortunately, the Sharks had Scott Nichol to jam in a key goal at the end of the second period and Manny Malhotra to score their first goal on another hustle play.

There was also a hmmm-don't-think-so call of goalie interference against the Sharks' Setoguchi. It happened with 11:32 left in the third period when Setoguchi tripped over an already-sprawling Anderson and put the puck into the net. But instead of tying the game, Setoguchi was given a penalty that ruined any momentum the Sharks had built — until Pavelski's stunner.

Nabokov, meanwhile, had one of those games that could have been adapted into a Russian novel. Another of the Avalanche's freaky ricochet goals to start the night — this one off the upper chest of Sharks defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic — Nabokov seemed out of alignment. He gave up a couple of uncharacteristic goals and made a stickhandling goof that led to another.

But then, about three minutes into the overtime, Nabokov made a crucial save of a shot by Colorado rookie phenom Matt Duchene that appeared headed toward the far side of the net. Nabokov didn't appear sure that he had the puck. But his good positioning saved him.

And a few minutes later, the Clowe-Setoguchi tag team saved the Sharks.